Ahhh, Thanksgiving. My favorite holiday. I actually have a lot to be thankful for. I have a loving girlfriend, a surprisingly not-hate-worthy job in a city I quite like (despite the last entry on this article), and the English language has a seemingly-endless variety of ways to say that food is terrible. And what better time to do so than now, when food is foremost on everyone's mind? Let's do this thing.

Corn Pudding — How to Make Corn Pudding in Four Easy Steps, Probably Because Masked Men Have Taken Your Loved Ones Hostage and This Was on the List of Demands For Some Reason:— Step One: Create a substance akin to corn-flavored jello using milk and concentrated depression.— Step Two: Weep in apprehension as you contemplate what Step One portends.— Step Three: Add corn pieces. You should probably attempt not to throw up directly into the bowl at this point, although it's doubtful anyone would be able to tell the difference.— Step Four: Decide your loved ones aren't worth it and give up.

Green Bean Casserole — I will concede that it is theoretically possible for there to exist a Green Bean Casserole that isn't terrible. I'm just not sure it's ever been done before. There's no individual ingredient to this dish that I actively dislike, but when their powers combine, it summons Captain Vomit. I honestly feel bad for the crispy onions on top of these things. Poor crispy onions; the rancid cream and soggy vegetables don't actually love you — they're just using you for your good looks. You should dump them and get with a burger who'll like you for you.

Sweet Potato Casserole with Marshmallows — Who...who even...how could you...WHY DOES THIS EXIST?! Why would you do this to a perfectly good sweet potato casserole?! 1) They're fucking sweet potatos, they don't need marshmallowy death glue to give them MORE sweetness, and 2) if you really want to add something sweet, use candied nuts or (pending allergy issues) something else with some sort of crunchy texture as a fucking crust. Why would you leave disgusting, half-melted depth charges in your fucking sweet potato casserole?! Are you hunting for U-Boats in there?! Is the inside of every sweet potato casserole a scene from Das Boot?! PLEASE LET IT BE SO, I WANT TO BELIEVE.

Instant Gravy — "Gee, I'd love some sandy mud to top off my mashed potatos/turkey. Yes, more gritty bits, that looks lovely. Why, of course the constant danger of disgusted suffocation is something I look for out of my dining experience, why would you ask?"

Chess Pie — If you've never had Chess Pie (I hadn't until last year), it's pretty much just a sugar pie, topped with sugar. I'm not exaggerating, it's like 85% sugar and 15% pie crust. You can look it up. On a related note, here's a clue that a thing is too goddamn sugary to exist: I WON'T EAT IT. My bloodstream is like 68% high fructose corn syrup at this point, and if I'm looking at a food and going "whoa, hey, wait a minute," THAT SHOULD TELL YOU SOMETHING.

Ok, this final entry is not a Thanksgiving food. I realize that. But a) you try coming up with 12 bad Thanksgiving foods when it generally has the best food of ANY holiday (no, Passover does not have the best food of any holiday, you're just so drunk by the time the food gets there that you think horseradish on matzoh tastes delicious), and b) I ate this meal for lunch Friday then immediately went home to write about it.

Primanti Brothers Sandwiches — Since I moved to Pittsburgh, people have been telling me to go to Primanti Brothers for a sandwich. It is, literally without fail, the first question anyone who has ever lived here asked me when I told them where I was headed. You'd think I would've gone there sooner than three and a half months after arriving considering that I love sandwiches and there's one right near where I work. I finally went there on Friday. I wasn't expecting it to live up to the hype, but I wasn't expecting it to be terrible, either. My sights were firmly set on mediocre.

How sadly, gravely mistaken I was, for my sandwich cannot be truly said to have been a sandwich. It was the anti-sandwich whose birth portends the Crust Times. It was the ur-example of sandwich corruption. It was listed as a cheesesteak, but in truth, it was darkness given form.

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You know, you'd think, given that it's located in the same state as Philadelphia, that Pittsburgh would understand what actually constitutes a cheesesteak. A cheesesteak (pay attention, Pittsburgh) is either thinly-sliced steak or steak tips topped with either Cheese Wiz (if you're in Philly) or actual real cheese product that doesn't come out of a fucking spray can (if you're in a city whose entire population hasn't apparently suffered a fucking head trauma), like provolone or cheddar or swiss. You can mix and match some combination of onions, mushrooms, lettuce, tomatoes (*shudder*), mayo — that's pretty much up to you. But the STEAK and the CHEESE elements are pretty constant to a FUCKING CHEESESTEAK. What is NOT a cheesesteak is one slab of mildly meatlike substance (which, given its total lack of anything resembling flavor, I have to assume was some form of industrial insulation) topped with a single depressed slice of white American cheese. That is not a cheesesteak, Primanti Brothers. That is like if pure, platonic Horror were capable of having an orgasm. By the way, I fully realize that sentence makes no sense. That just gives it something in common with the fact that people from Pittsburgh fucking love Primanti Brothers.

But that's only the first part of what made this the worst sandwich I've ever had. The second part is that Primanti Brothers sandwiches are as tall as they are wide, which...why? Why the fuck would you do that to a sandwich? Sandwich integrity is a serious issue — if your sandwich is falling apart on the way to your mouth, you're not fucking enjoying it very much, and if it's such a perfect sphere that it would bring Archimedes to tears, YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG.

Third, there's a thing sandwiches need called "sauce" or "some type of condiment." You may have heard of it before. It acts as a lubricant and makes the sandwich-ee say something like "Yum!" as opposed to "Oh dear, I seem to have put the Mojave desert in my mouth." With cheesesteaks, usually the au jus can accomplish this without any help, but since you can't make au jus from a hobo's discarded winter coat that you are pretending is meat, I was SOL here. As it is, the only vaguely sauce-like thing you'll get on a Primanti Brothers sandwich is the weird, vinegary, possibly-motor-oil liquid on the coleslaw, which succeeds neither as a flavor nor as a structural element.

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Fourth, that fucking coleslaw. I mean, come on. I like cabbage. My dinner last night consisted of like 90% cabbage. And you CAN put coleslaw on a sandwich. It's been done before with great success. But not a) when it's FUCKING VINEGARY COLESLAW OH MY GOD EW, or b) when the coleslaw is so cold and the sandwich so lukewarm that it fucks up the temperature differential so much that it tastes like it's been sitting out on the sidewalk for the last three days. Temperature differentials in food are fine if you know what you're doing — they're the reason burritos are so delicious — but not if your sandwich is roughly 40% cabbage poop encased in disconcertingly cold bread, and if another 50% of that sandwich is MOTHERFUCKING FRENCH FRIES.

Lastly...Pittsburgh, we need to talk about this potato thing. I'm guessing at some point you were hanging out with the other cities, and the following conversation happened:

Pittsburgh: "Dude. DUDE. I just came up with THE BEST idea."Chicago: "What?"Pittsburgh: "French fries...ON a sandwich."Los Angeles: "You mean, like...on the side?"Pittsburgh: "No no — as a topping. I'M A FUCKING GENIUS."DC: "...I dunno, dude. That sounds...I mean..."Chicago: "I think what DC is trying to say is that's just really dumb. I mean, I'm the one who came up with putting the sauce on TOP of the pizza, and even I think french fries as a sandwich topping is stupid. For Christ's sake, even Philly would tell you that's a terrible idea if he wasn't busy beating up an elderly woman."Pittsburgh: "FUCK YOU GUYS, IMMA DO WHAT I WANT! PIEROGIS ON A SANDWICH, DEAL WITH THAT SHIT!"St. Louis: "Well gollee gee whillikers, guys, I don't think we need all this swearing, back where I come from people are just simple folk who—"New York: "Shut the fuck up, St. Louis, no one likes you."San Francisco: "HEY LOOK GUYS, I'M DRESSING UP LIKE A NUN AND THROWING CONDOMS AT PEOPLE, AREN'T I WACKY?!"

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While I admire the obstinacy in your viewpoint there, Pittsburgh, sometimes when people tell you a thing is terrible, it isn't because they're jealous of your genius, it's because that thing is terrible. Basically...stop. You don't need to put potatoes on everything. Really. French fries and pierogis don't need to be shoehorned into every possible fucking meal. I mean, I LIKE french fries and pierogis, but there are places they should not go. As a sandwich topping is one of those places. There's a reason you're the only place that does that in the entire universe, and it isn't because you're ahead of the curve, it's because you have a serious addiction issue. It does not taste good. It has never tasted good. I don't know why you think it would ever taste good. Just put them on the side like a sane person would.